How difficult is it to change total bitcoin's 21 million suppply?

[Janation]

It seems to me that it is very difficult to implement.  I would say that it is impossible.  Since bitcoin in the amount of a certain amount, this can not be changed.  I do not know what you can think of to inflate.

I don't think it is that hard.

If the developers think that it is the right thing to do, it will be done immediately it is just that, I don't see that happening too. Well, let's say that it is a choice so, it will happen if they want it and if the people also wanted it.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Increasing the supply is never going to happen, as it will divide the community and a section of the users will shift to BCH and BSV if any such measure is implemented. If the circulating supply is not enough, then the only viable solution is to split the existing and coins to be mined in the future, rather than creating new coins. If the miners just create new coins, then there will be no difference between BTC and fiat currency. 

[Nellayar]

Increase in the supply of bitcoin happens through various parameters, and particularly miners play a big role in reaching concensus on the same. Even for increase of block size it was great struggle to reach consensus among the miners. I don't think this will happen, and if such a decision is taken bitcoin is gonna loss its value.

Increasing of supply really miners role. They mine the bitcoin supply. But because there is halving bitcoin supply every four years, mining of 21Million BTC is really hard and takes time. The circulation of BTC makes it more volatile. Because of its limited supply, the price hike. So, we don't need to request that bitcoin increase even up to 100 Million coins only.

[kryptqnick]

I think that Bitcoin supply is predetermined, there's no way to change it... But now I can see that some people are seriously discussing that, so I guess it might be possible, even if miners' consensus won't get it done: https://news.bitcoin.com/proposal-to-increase-bitcoins-21-million-supply-sparks-debate/. As for changing the block size, I think it's an easier task, but I don't see how this is related to changing the supply.
If we are talking about Bitcoins being too scarce, don't forget that there's way more in Satoshis, and eventually, we might just turn to count them rather than bitcoins. And if there aren't enough Satoshis - well, then we need to make something to split them into even smaller pieces the possibility of which is also debatable.

[SquallLeonhart]

This supply of bitcoin is still quite a mystery to me, because I am unsure how this supply would even be able to serve population of over 7 billion people if bitcoin was to become a global currency, and based on what I have always understood, it would be impossible for supply to be further expanded once it has been exhausted expect maybe the person that wrote the code of the program himself has an answer or a solution to this, so I would not really know too if it would ever be possible.

Bitcoin on the other hand cannot be control or re-code by any other person out there since it cannot be altered, so even the person that has the most bitcoin cannot except maybe satoshi can because he still has the highest number of bitcoin as of today. I think he has about 1 million bitcoin untouched.

[bryant.coleman]

I have been saying this for quite some time. We need to re-denominate Bitcoin, as it has become very "expensive" now. The total supply will remain the same, but the coins will be redenominated, for example one coin becoming 10,000. Anyone with a balance of 10 BTC in his wallet will be having 100,000 BTC after the redenomination. The total circulating supply would increased to 176 billion from the current 17.6 million and the maximum supply would increase to 210 billion from 21 million. If we do the redenomination now, then the price of 1 BTC will almost become equal to 1 USD.

And please don't confuse redenomination with increasing the supply by creating more coins to mine. It is different. Redenomination is similar to stock bonuses. Here someone owns 1 coin gets another 999 as bonus.

[franklin2058]

Increasing the supply is never going to happen, as it will divide the community and a section of the users will shift to BCH and BSV if any such measure is implemented. If the circulating supply is not enough, then the only viable solution is to split the existing and coins to be mined in the future, rather than creating new coins. If the miners just create new coins, then there will be no difference between BTC and fiat currency. 

Your argument is not right. "As it will divide the community and a section of the users will shift to BCH and BSV if any such measure is implemented", you can say the same thing about Zimbabwean dollar as increasing the supply of Zimbabwean dollar and a section of Zimbabwean people will shift to US dollars and gold. Yet see what happened to  Zimbabwean dollar.

[Asuspawer09]

What kind of process have to go through? Who make the final votes? I guess the change is similar to implementing BIP.

I heard many posts here said "Economic Majority" vote decides. Does this mean who hold the most bitcoins decide? Maybe not. I guess BIP is determined by Bitcoin Core developers, so the total bitcoin supply (21 million) is also determined by Bitcoin Core developers.

Also, the argument against the "Economic Majority" is it is often the case we can't find holder for the addresses with a lot of bitcoins. How can we contact them for vote?

Thank you indeed!

I'm an Information Technology student and I still have no idea about this I think as the bitcoin technology was made to be able to change the bitcoin supply you need to hack the bitcoin first,
which is almost impossible since until today no one could still hack bitcoin and I think there is a reward to this so I think bitcoin technology has a solid security.

[blckhawk]

I don't think it is dependent on those with largest market share. They don't contribute anything to the hashing power. Those that matter are the full nodes, and the honesty of those nodes. If an attacker, say using 51% attack methodology, gets a hold of nodes larger than half of the whole network nodes, then they could generate more longer blockchain than that honest blockchain, making double spending possible.

[Lottoshi]

My understanding is it’s impossible, if this is so easy to change, Bitcoin wouldn’t be a trustworthy protocol

[Sadlife]

There was a consensus before to decide if we should change the original code of bitcoin and make supply bigger and it resulted to an hardfork, because some may think increasing the supply could possibly affect the bitcoin price and all those effort to increase the price may suddenly fall down.
Honestly for me BTC is like an digital gold and it should be preserve the way it is, cause scarcity could potentially increase the price in the near future that's why it has insane volatility. If we increase supply it could remove BTC volatility and become stagnant.

[iram3130]

In a simple understanding manner, if you change something which Satoshi didnt thought of doing then it will be an altcoin. People are still not completely educated about this and lots of confusions around this matter.

[franky1]

bitcoins 21m is just an arbitrary number based on a user-interface value

what most people dont realise is that at actual code level bitcoin started at 5,000,000,000 satoshis per reward and every 210,000 blocks that amount of satosh's halves

at graphic user interface it is very very very easy to change todays 1,250,000,000 sat reward to be represented as GUI level that its not 12.5btc. but claim that 125btc just by moving the conversion of sats / 100m to being sats /10mill

its as easy as that

..
bitcoin devs are actually(and foolishly) thinking off subdividing sats by another 1000. yep they want to make it so the reward is 1,250,000,000,000 millisat tokens created per block instead of
1,250,000,000 sat tokens created per block

this would require the unit of account of smallest divisible unit requiring 100Bill units to be classed as a btc

people dont actually realise that the 'sharable units' right now are a max capacity of 2,100,000,000,000,000 sharable units. and not limited to 21m sharable units

yep bitcoin can be shared between alot more than 21m people. and devs want to increase it from 2.1quadriion to 2.1quintillion
thus abusing the 'scarcity' promise bitcoin had

and why do they wanna do that.. to make bitcoin compatible with an alt network which other altcoins can also use. thus also removing bitcoins unique feature and usefulness by trying to get people over to other networks

but to summarise the topic question
its very easy to change the 21m cap figure as 21m is just a GUI number and not a code number
no transaction found in the blockchain is measured in bitcoin. its measured in satoshis. thus wont break any chain rules by changing the GUI interface

yep people can run the node on the network and just have the basket term known as 'btc' be called anything. and it will still function. because 'btc' is not in the blockchain.

.. go on people.. try it
grab the codebase and just change any reference to 'btc' and call it 'helicopter' and i bet the node will still run, still validate the same blocks
..
next change the conversion of 100m sats to be 10m sats=1 heiicopter.
again it will still function. but now people can get 125 helicopters

yes you will be seeing helicopters and others will be seeing whatever rename they want. but it has not broke the consensus or caused any orphaning of transactions/blocks

[shoreno]

the devs are the ones that decide if they will make changes on thier coin  . for bitcoin , bitcoin core developers and not the majority or the ones that hold alot of bitcoin  .

 but i dont know if its possible to change the supply of the coin once they were already released and running  . if yes then i still think that it was not easy   .  laslty , i dont think that its beneficial to up the supply of btc because that will only make its price lesser but that would make bitcoin more stable  .

[GideonGono]

the devs are the ones that decide if they will make changes on thier coin  . for bitcoin , bitcoin core developers and not the majority or the ones that hold alot of bitcoin  .

 but i dont know if its possible to change the supply of the coin once they were already released and running  . if yes then i still think that it was not easy   .  laslty , i dont think that its beneficial to up the supply of btc because that will only make its price lesser but that would make bitcoin more stable  .

It is not possible to change because it is fix and whatever they created it is only thing that they will. I think if something they will create or change the supply, it have a bigger change and a huge effect for all.

[Twentyonepaylots]

the devs are the ones that decide if they will make changes on thier coin  . for bitcoin , bitcoin core developers and not the majority or the ones that hold alot of bitcoin  .

 but i dont know if its possible to change the supply of the coin once they were already released and running  . if yes then i still think that it was not easy   .  laslty , i dont think that its beneficial to up the supply of btc because that will only make its price lesser but that would make bitcoin more stable  .

It is not possible to change because it is fix and whatever they created it is only thing that they will. I think if something they will create or change the supply, it have a bigger change and a huge effect for all.

The 21 Million supple is just a parameter, it is not necessarily an exact 21 million. Nevertheless, as of the moment there is no need for people to amp up the amount of existing bitcoin as the value it holds makes it even harder for an average person to earn one. On top of this, creating more bitcoins per se will cause it's value to depreciate, just like normal fiat coins, so it is not the best thing to do as of the moment.

[Ucy]

Change supply just like that?

I guess you'd need the consent of all stakeholders, both small and big to do this.
If changing things on Bitcoin is that easy, Bitcoin would lose one of its most cherished values.
All stakeholders should determine major changes, and the purposes for the changes have to be well explained to them.
I think there should be long discussion between the majority and those elected to represent Bitcoin interest and it's principles. If these representatives are discovered to be going against the laid down rule, they are quickly remove by all stakeholders.
By the way, small group representing Bitcoin without the input of majority, is quite risky. They can easily be influenced.

[Artemis3]

the devs are the ones that decide if they will make changes on thier coin  . for bitcoin , bitcoin core developers and not the majority or the ones that hold alot of bitcoin  .

 but i dont know if its possible to change the supply of the coin once they were already released and running  . if yes then i still think that it was not easy   .  laslty , i dont think that its beneficial to up the supply of btc because that will only make its price lesser but that would make bitcoin more stable  .

No, if its not accepted people won't upgrade their nodes and the network would remain with the current rules. Its not as simple as developers simply pushing the change. Most improvements are minor and tacitly accepted, but if something this controversial would come you can expect a hell lot more of resistance.

Yes its technically 21 000 000 x 100 000 000 = 2100000000000000 satoshis, to be objective the OP would be asking, if they could change this into 4200000000000000 satoshis.

Everyone knows 42 is the answer. As for the question, you'd have to read a book, actually a guide... Something about mice running an experiment... (Douglas Adams actually said he didn't pick 42 for any specific reason, but this joke is endless).

As for the reason Satoshi used 21, i guess, it was the same (arbitrary). But most importantly, it was set and accepted as the rules. If it were 42 since the beginning, the result would be identical, bitcoin price would be exactly half, and people would have exactly twice of them. You could also do the opposite but i see no reason to change the rules at this point.

[cabron]

the devs are the ones that decide if they will make changes on thier coin  . for bitcoin , bitcoin core developers and not the majority or the ones that hold alot of bitcoin  .

 but i dont know if its possible to change the supply of the coin once they were already released and running  . if yes then i still think that it was not easy   .  laslty , i dont think that its beneficial to up the supply of btc because that will only make its price lesser but that would make bitcoin more stable  .

No, if its not accepted people won't upgrade their nodes and the network would remain with the current rules. Its not as simple as developers simply pushing the change. Most improvements are minor and tacitly accepted, but if something this controversial would come you can expect a hell lot more of resistance.

Yes its technically 21 000 000 x 100 000 000 = 2100000000000000 satoshis, to be objective the OP would be asking, if they could change this into 4200000000000000 satoshis.

Everyone knows 42 is the answer. As for the question, you'd have to read a book, actually a guide... Something about mice running an experiment... (Douglas Adams actually said he didn't pick 42 for any specific reason, but this joke is endless).

As for the reason Satoshi used 21, i guess, it was the same (arbitrary). But most importantly, it was set and accepted as the rules. If it were 42 since the beginning, the result would be identical, bitcoin price would be exactly half, and people would have exactly twice of them. You could also do the opposite but i see no reason to change the rules at this point.

Wouldn't this be a centralized coin if only the devs are to have the power to decide?

As far as I know the miners will have to vote for it whether they are going to support the fork and it means they will have to make a lot of changes before all these will take place. The community might just be divided actually and will have BTC and probably BTC42 

[msarro]

I don’t think there is possibility to change the total supply of 21 million bitcoin, last one of which will be mined in 2140. Satoshi designed the algorithm in a manner that bitcoin will have a controlled inflation. As per my knowledge there is no one who can change this supply.